I figured it was something to do with sand being light enough to be carried by wind, but that wouldn’t explain why the rest of the world lacks sand.
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This is a misconception. Most deserts have a lot of dirt and it is the rare desert that only has sand. Although the soil still has sand mixed in, but so does the soil of a lot of non-desert places.
Here is a map of soil composition over the United States and you’ll find sand in various concentrations in every state.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/87220/soil-composition-across-the-us
>Why is there sand in deserts and no dirt? Why isn’t there sand anywhere else?
Can you ELI5 something for me? How can you never have heard of a beach?
Never been to a beach? Lake? River?
There is sand several places besides the desert.
On a basic level, dirt is what generally covers the earth. Sand is small rock particle that have been broken down over time. This is why sand exists where water is or used to be.
Just to blow your mind a little but if you go to the largest desert on the planet you won’t see any sand.
“Dirt” or “soil” is made of five things: minerals, organic matter, gas, water, and soil-dwelling organisms. Minerals are further divided based on size into sand, silt, and clay (decreasing size order).
In deserts, most of the plants have died off, so there is no more organic matter. This lack of organic matter means there is nothing to feed the soil-dwelling organisms, and they disappear too. This leaves the soil loose and un-aerated, so the water all sinks to the bottom while the silt and clay get either picked up by winds (because they are the lightest) or also sink (because agitated particles self-sort vertically by size), leaving lots and lots of sand on top.
, never seen a sandy beach? A sandy riverbed, I’ve even seen parts of fields that had sandy soil, for example alberta has alot of sand but no desert.
There is sand elsewhere… Look at beaches. I live in northern Canada, and all I have is sand between me and the bedrock. No desert anywhere near here.
Sand is just decomposed rock. Anywhere you have rock and the ability for something to weather it (rivers, rainfall, waves, etc) you get sand.
It’s simple. Jesus put the sand there to hide the dinosaur bones Satan planted to trick us into believing in evolution. It’s all explained in my book: The Bible 2.0
I live in central/west tx and it’s nothing but sand. Even all our hay fields are literally sand. There was a fire that came through and everything looked like sand dunes!
Sand is defined by particle size (0.005 – 2 mm). Smaller particles are called silt, bigger ones are called gravel. What you would consider dirt is made up of particles of various sizes, including sand particles. So in fact, you will have sand in the ground almost anywhere on earth.
And while we’re on it: Deserts are defined by lack of moisture. Not presence of sand, not temperature.
So: There absolutely can be sand without it being a desert, and there absolutely are deserts without sand.
Why are deserts where they are?
Without going too in-depth, deserts emerge where there is more evaporation than precipitation, resulting in (relatively) permanent aridity. This can have various causes, and we actually differentiate deserts by their origin.
Why is there no dirt in, say, the Sahara desert?
Let’s actually call it soil. Soil is made up of mineral and organic particles. You might be able to guess where I’m going here – there is not much vegetation or life in a desert. Hence very little organic particles and no soil.
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